Design of Ground Telecommand System for Flight Termination in a Software Defined Radio Platform

This article demonstrates the design and implementation of ground telecommand system(GTC) for flight termination purpose on a software defined radio (SDR) platform. SDR implementation of the system enables it to be versatile in the sense that different types of base band techniques can be implemented in the same SDR hardware. RF system consisting of high power amplifier(PA) and base band system consisting of flight termination unit(FTU),Automatic change over unit(ACOU),Range safety panel(RSP) are developed and integrated to realize a complete system. ACOU is developed for automatic changeover between FTU and between PAs in case of faults such as VSWR, temperature and module level fault to enhance the reliability of the system. The integrated GUI is unique as it can monitor and control both the base band and RF system. Streamlined methods have been adopted for this design to minimize hardware usage. For rapid prototyping, LabVIEW programming language is used. The system has been validated in actual field trials.